


In Which Howl Catches Up With An Old Acquaintance and Learns Something New

by MotherInLore



Category: Howl Series - Diana Wynne Jones, Howl's Moving Castle - All Media Types
Genre: Exactly What It Says on the Tin, Gen, Magic and Science, Silly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-17
Updated: 2017-06-17
Packaged: 2018-11-15 01:31:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11220456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MotherInLore/pseuds/MotherInLore
Summary: Howl doesn't knoweverythingabout catching demons.





	In Which Howl Catches Up With An Old Acquaintance and Learns Something New

“There's a witch in the garden,” Calcifer announced. “The one with the hot springs, not the mansion one.”

Sophie blew out her breath. Never a moment's peace. “What's she doing? No, Morgan, you can't reach up to the table.” Morgan tried nonetheless, but the table obligingly extended its legs a few more inches and he wobbled and then sat down again. He roared with disappointment. Sophie wasn't sure her spell would work if she couldn't hear herself think, so she grabbed a bucket, pumped it halfway full of water, and gave Morgan that and a wooden spoon. After a bit of thought, she also filled a teacup partway full of soap flakes. “Here, Morgan. You can mix the -er- the cleaning potion. It would be a big help to me.” The boy knew not to try to eat the soap, at least, and his time as a kitten had left him more interested in cleanliness than most toddlers.

“Laundry,” said Calcifer.

“What, already?” Sophie had taken three steps toward the yard that held the washtub before she remembered that she hadn't done any laundry today.

“That's what the witch in the garden is doing,” said Calcifer. “She's washing her clothes in one of the hot springs. Herself too. She's going to smell wonderful: like sulfur.”

“Oh,” said Sophie.

“I don't think she's even noticed the castle yet,” Calcifer sniffed.

“Well, maybe she'll just go away then,” Sophie said hopefully. She measured out some green powder from a pottery bottle into her silver mixing bowl. “Now,” she told her spell cheerfully as she began to mix, “You are going to be some very special honing oil, for the best knights in Prince Justin's army. You will hone the blades until they're sharp enough to shave with, and then they'll stay sharp all day long, no matter what happens.” She was going to have to work most of the rest of the afternoon to make such a large order, because her biggest silver bowl wasn't big enough to do the whole thing at once. She'd just have to work it in batches, unless Howl bestirred himself.

“Owwweeee!” Morgan roared, blundering into her skirts and knocking over his bucket in the process. Sophie nearly added too much powdered horse feather, which would have ruined the batch, but she managed to pull her hand back in time. Water seeped across the floor, leaving it noticeably cleaner.

“What is it, _caraid?_ ” She'd picked the word up from Howl. Sophie stooped down to pat her son's back. “Did you get soap in your eyes? There, there, don't rub it. See, your tears have washed the soap away and your eyes feel better already.”

Morgan gulped, then nodded, slowly. 

“Now,” said Sophie, “you could use this cloth to spread the -er- cleaning potion around the rest of the floor, if you like, and after that...”

“Oh, that was a lovely bath!” Howl emerged from the door at the top of the stairs, stretching luxuriously and making minor adjustments to his trailing sleeves as he made his way down. “Nothing like a good long soak to make all your cares and – aiiiee!” Howl's foot slipped on the soapy puddle. His arms flailed and one trailing sleeve caught on the newel post. Sophie heard the seam of the sleeve beginning to rip. With an alarming twist of his spine, Howl was able to bring his other hand over on top of the post before the sleeve gave way and deposited him on the floor, and then to ease himself upright. He stood panting for a moment.

“Sophie,” he said carefully, once he had his footing again and had looked around a little, “Sophie, my darling my dear, my most intrepid and formidable wife, you know I would never question your judgment. I'm certain you have excellent reasons for assigning our son to manual labor before he has reached his second birthday. However-”

“I am trying,” Sophie growled, “to keep him occupied for ten minutes while I finish this batch of honing oil _someone_ promised to deliver to Prince Justin by tomorrow. Since _someone_ has been too busy taking baths and putting anti-wrinkle cream around his eyes to do any work around here.”

“I have wrinkles around my eyes?” Howl cried in alarm, but before he could head back to the bathroom, Morgan toddled over to him and clasped his legs.

“Ah, who's this?” Howl bent down and ruffled the boy's mud-colored hair, smiling.

“Me!” cried Morgan.

“Oh, but it can't be my own Morgan, surely. This boy is far too big!”

“Me!”

Sophie left them to it and went back to stirring the honing oil.

“Oop,” said Calcifer, “Looks like that witch noticed the castle after all. She's headed toward us. Doesn't seem to mean any harm, though.”

Howl looked up. “Who's this, now?”

Before either Sophie or Calcifer could answer, a loud, honking voice called through the door. “Hellau?” it said, “Hellau the- the giant, creaky, smoking... thing! Anyone home?”

“Go ahead and stop the castle, Calcifer,” Howl directed. “Sophie, if you've finished stirring, could you see who it is please? Let's take you upstairs and get you dried off, Morgan.” Morgan's trousers were quite wet, particularly around the knees and bottom. They were certainly clean, though.

“Hellau?” The voice had not gone away, and Howl had slithered out of doing anything about it. Sophie sighed again, spun the knob above the door until it was purple side down, and prepared to be haughty and rude. She didn't need anyone else asking for favors right now.

The witch on the other side of the door was a plain, sturdy, sunburned person, in dusty-looking clothes of plain, sturdy fabric, perhaps a little younger than Howl but not quite as young as Sophie. She squinted doubtfully at Sophie.

Sophie sniffed at her. “Really,” she said, “ 'giant, creaky, smoking thing' indeed! Haven't you ever seen a moving castle before?”

The witch craned her neck slightly, looking up at the castle. “Is that what it is? It's really something, no lie.” She squinted at it a little longer, then ducked her head politely at Sophie. “I hope I'm not troubling you,” she said, “Only I only just realized this was probably your garden I'd found myself in, and I thought I'd better apologize for trespassing. Or maybe do you a favor in exchange for having had the use of your hot water.” Her accent didn't sound like anything Sophie had heard before. Nearly all the ohs sounded like ows, and the r's seemed to disappear when no one was paying attention. 

“Oh, well, that's quite all right,” Sophie said. “No trouble at all, miss -er-”

“Pears,” the witch answered. “Anselma Pears. That's real nice of you. Jall and I will just finish drying the laundry and be on our way, sorry to disturb you.”

“Cert-” Sophie began to say, but she was interrupted again. Howl had managed to get Morgan sorted out in record time – or, more likely, had left the job half-done so he could come down and snoop. His vantage from halfway down the stairs let him peer over Sophie's shoulder. 

“Selma?” he said, and hurried over to the door as fast as he could without slipping on the soap again. “Is that you, then?”

Miss Pears – or maybe it was Parz? goggled for a moment, then her face creased into a wide, delighted grin. “Jenkin! Holy mother duck, is that you?”

Sophie drew herself up, thinking, Oh,no, not another old girlfriend... “Actually,” she said, stiffly, “It's Pendragon.”

“Yeah?” Miss Pears looked skeptically at Howl. “Did you go whole hog and start calling yourself Arthur, too?”

“You wound me!” Howl said, looking wounded, “Anyway, Selma, I see you've met my wife, Sophie. Perhaps you might join us for a cup of tea before you go on your way? We could reminisce over old times, perhaps.”

Miss Pears goggled again. “Wife?” she said, “Wife? You're married now?” She looked askance at Sophie, then looked harder at Sophie's belly.

Here we go, Sophie thought, but at least Miss Pears wasn't bursting into tears or balling up her fists. “Holy mother duck!” she breathed, “Married! Gedouddahere!”

“I fail to see why this comes as such a surprise,” Howl said indignantly. “I have met the love of my life. Just because things didn't work out between you and me...”

“What things?” Miss Pears' eyebrows looked like they wanted to tie themselves in knots. “There never was anything between me and you. I always thought you preferred boys.”

Howl went very pale, and nothing came out of his mouth but a sort of squeak. “You... thought...”

“Well, yeah,” said Miss Pears. “How many straight Welshmen go around all the time smelling like roses and daylilies?”

“At least one!” Howl began a dramatic gesture, but thought better of it and broke it off partway through.

“Yeah, sure, fine,” said Miss Pears. “No offense meant; just goes to show what assumptions get you. So I take it this … castle is your doing? Very impressive. Could I have a look inside?”

Sophie bit her lip. “Well,” she said, “it's not quite so impressive from the inside, and... things are a bit of a mess just now...”

“Please do!” said Howl.

“Howl!” but Sophie stepped aside to let Miss Pears come into the kitchen.

The other witch looked around with interest. Unlike many of their visitors, she did not seem to be surprised by the smallness or plainness of the room. “Very nice,” she said. “Looks just like your old workroom in Porthaven, innit.” But then she turned to the fireplace and stopped dead.

Calcifer leered at her. “Hiya sweetie.”

Miss Pears swallowed a noise that might have been a scream or a laugh. She hurried back toward the door.

“Miss Pears, it's all right,” Sophie cried, “It's only Cal-” 

But Miss Pears was leaning out the castle door. “Jall!” she cried, “Jall, stop drying laundry and get over here! Ya gotta see this! Jenkin has a fire demon too!”

“Too?” Sophie looked around in a panic, unsure whether she wanted to rush up the stairs to defend Morgan or shove Miss Pears out the door. 

Howl turned toward Calcifer, his face like thunder. “And just when were you planning on letting me know about this little detail, old blueface? Eh?”

Calcifer hunkered down on his log. “It's not like I'm still bound to a contract, you know,” he sulked.

Sophie glanced out the door. Another figure was making its way across the flowerbeds toward them. It didn't look anything like Calcifer, or even like Miss Angorian, who was the only other fire demon Sophie had ever encountered. Jall was short and thick like a dwarf, with long orange hair and long, gray, flowing robes. She had shaped herself to be something like a human, but she and her clothes looked lumpy, as if they were made out of clay. She didn't walk so much as ooze, her robe seeming to drip down like candlewax in front of her. When she came to the door, she looked in and drew back again. “That floor is wet,” she said, in a hissing, whispery voice like a kettle full of steam.

“Never you mind that!” Calcifer cried, and whooshed up the chimney, leaving only a few embers behind on his log. He reappeared outside, floating in the air next to Jall. “I can talk to you just as well out here.”

The other fire demon inclined her head graciously. “Pleased to meet you,” she hissed. “My name is Joleen, but you may call me Jole”

“It's an honor to be able to call you anything at all,” Calcifer declared.

Howl said, “Well, then, perhaps --” but Sophie grabbed his elbow and tugged. 

“Please excuse us a moment, Miss Pears,” she said, and pulled him into the next room.

“Sophie!” Howl protested, but he kept his voice low enough that Miss Pears couldn't hear. “What are you doing!”

“WE have to do something about that fire demon!”

Howl stiffened. “Of course we do! Selma is a dear friend from my student days! I can't let her go around losing herself to a fire demon! I know firsthand just what that's like.”

“Good.”

“Wonderful!” Howl grinned sunnily. “So I'll go have a bit of a chat with her while you finish getting Morgan dressed and make some tea, and I'll just sort of subtly work my way around to the topic, and then I'll let them know that you can break the contract without destroying Calcifer's girlfriend, there.”

“Howl, don't you – just how far did you get with Morgan, exactly?”

Howl blinked. “Oh. Well, I got him out of his wet things, and then he wanted to sit on his pot for a bit, and then I got him back to the nursery, but he was so happy playing I didn't want to disturb him.”

“So you just left him up there. You'd better be ready to fix whatever damage he's done while you've been down here, Howl.”

“Oh, I'm sure he's fine. Now, I'll go see to our guest, shall I? Come join us when the tea's ready.”

Morgan hadn't actually done too much damage, Sophie saw. He hadn't stayed in the nursery, but all he'd done in Sophie and Howl's room was pull all the bedclothes off the bed and knock over a footstool. It only took her ten minutes to tidy up again and get Morgan into a fresh nappie and trousers. She collected the tea things and filled a kettle with cold water (since Calcifer hadn't left enough of himself behind to do the job of boiling it). Morgan followed her out into the water-garden. Howl, Sophie saw, had conjured up a checkered tablecloth from somewhere, and he lounged. Miss Pears sat bolt upright. Jole and Calcifer sat on two flat stones that weighed the blanket down. Howl waved a graceful hand at her, and she handed the kettle to Calcifer, and then had to chase Morgan partway across the meadow to make sure he didn't fall into any of the swampy bits. Sophie was only able to catch small snatches of the conversation, but it didn't matter, because Howl was slithering again. He didn't say anything about contracts, or fire demons, but instead was talking about their student days.

“I will not hear a word against Mrs. Pentstemmon!”

“I didn't say any!” Miss Pears protested, “She and I just never had much use for each other. I'm a manualist, y'know. I spin magic, and weave it. She never worked with her hands a day in her life; she only ever bothered with talkers.”

The next time Morgan toddled by, Miss Pears was saying something about her recent period of study out in the desert. “There was a wind spirit we got friendly with, too. I called her Mariah.”

A short time later, Howl let out an outraged squawk, and Sophie hurried over to hear incomprehensible talk about rugby. Sophie gathered the gist of it over the course of the next several rounds of the meadow. It seemed that Miss Pears did come from the same world Howl did, but that "New South" Wales was a very different place than the Wales Howl was from. Miss Pears had a poor opinion of Howl's Wales, it seemed, because of something to do with a thatcher.

The next time Morgan came near the picnic cloth, Sophie caught the word “Angorian.” It seemed Howl was finally getting around to the subject at hand. “Come on, Morgan,” she chirped, “Let's sit down on the blanket with Papa. You can have a cookie.”

“Pah!” Morgan agreed. He slithered his way into Howl's lap. Like Father, like son, Sophie thought.

Jole backed away a little. “I don't like babies,” she said. “They tend to be damp.”

“He's all right,” Calcifer said.

“Slapdash,” Miss Pears said to Howl. “Just goes to show how much trouble you can get into if you don't do your prep work.”

“Well, fortunately,” said Howl with his brightest smile, “you aren't in the same boat, thanks to my dear Sophie, here. With her talent for talking life into things, she can break your contract without any ill effects to either of you.”

“She can,” Calcifer confirmed. “She did it for me and Howl.”

“What?” Both their guests drew themselves up in outrage. “No!”

“No!” Morgan echoed delightedly, spraying pieces of cookie.

“Selma,” said Howl, “don't be ridiculous. You need your heart back.”

Jole's hair grew brighter, until it glowed in the light. “I'm not giving up my heart,” she spat.

Howl suddenly looked very dangerous. He shoved Morgan off his lap and stood up. “I'm afraid you don't have any choice in the matter,” he said. He flung his arms out and spoke three words that crackled like thunder. 

Jole's robes glowed orange around their edges and then went gray again. Nothing else happened.

Miss Powers looked contemptuous. “I wove those robes meself. They work like a Faraday cage.”

Sophie tried to move Morgan behind her. What, she wondered, was a fair day cage? Was it for doing weather magic? “But Miss Pears,” she started to say. 

“Pears, not peers,” Miss Pears snapped. “Pay-ow-dubya-ey-ah-ess. Pears.”

“It's _my _heart,” Jole insisted. “Selma made it just for me!”__

__There was a brief silence. Howl looked at Sophie. “Did she just say 'made'? Or am I hearing things?”_ _

__“Took me ages, too” Miss Powers said. “So you've got no business barging in and mucking it all up.”_ _

__“You... made a heart for your fire demon.” Howl said flatly._ _

__“Well,” said Miss Powers, “Yeah! You have to, innit? Says so right there in Basingstroke's Astral Conjurations: 'a fallen star cannot live in earthly realms without an earthly heart.' ”_ _

__“So you made one.” Howl repeated. “You didn't use the Ledford protocols for demon symbiosis, you just...”_ _

__“Ledford?” Miss Powers looked genuinely bewildered. “He did medical spells! Why bring Ledford into it?”_ _

__“Because that's how it's done!” Howl roared. “Every mage on record who tamed a fire demon did it that way. The demon holds onto your heart, and shares its power with you, and keeps you both alive.”_ _

__Jole looked disgusted. “A human heart? Ewww... they're all wet and squishy. Worse than babies.”_ _

__“That,” Miss Powers said, “Is the stupidest idea I have ever heard in my life. You decided to catch a falling star and you used Ledford? No wonder you needed a wife to keep you out of trouble.”_ _

__Sophie decided that she rather liked Miss Powers._ _

__“Oh, really?” said Howl, icily polite. “What, pray tell, should I have done instead, oh wise one?”_ _

__Miss Powers flounced her skirts a little. “What _you_ should have done,” she said, “was keep your chatterbox self out of the manualist bits of the library until you'd studied more of the theory. But what _I_ did was give Jall a way to align herself with the fires of the earth instead of the sky. You start by growing a pure iron crystal, and then you suspend it in a bath of liquid iron which is suspended in a force bubble, and then you set it all spinning so it magnetizes, and _then_ you go about trying to catch your falling star. Plus I'm skipping a few steps in the middle. The whole project took ages.”_ _

__“A lodestone.” Howl smote his brow with the back of his hand. “I put my life and soul at risk, and she enchants a lodestone.”_ _

__“Makes for a hard heart,” Jole admitted contentedly, “but it hardly ever leads me astray.”_ _

__“Whatever possessed you to enchant a lodestone?” Howl wailed._ _

__“It's obvious! Basingstroke says, 'an earthly heart,' and an iron crystal is what is at the heart of the earth. Did you not study the least bit of science at university? Or were you too busy reading Donne to first-years? No wonder your rugby team's rubbish: no logic to them.” Miss Powers bit off a piece of cookie derisively._ _

__Howl returned himself to a position of composure, one muscle at a time. “I am suitably chastened,” he said irritably._ _

__Miss Powers stood up and brushed off her skirts. “Well,” she said, “It's been a lovely tea, Jenkin, but Jall and I'd best be on our way. We're expected in Gwentystorm Mines two days from now, and it's a real trek even in seven-league boots. Pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Pendragon, I can see you're doing Howl all kinds of good.”_ _

__“Why, thank you,” Sophie murmured, and then had to grab Morgan before he wandered into danger again._ _

__Jole cast a long, burning look at Calcifer, who brightened. “I'll be in touch,” she whispered._ _

__And then their two unexpected visitors were making their way back across the meadow toward the hot springs and their waiting laundry._ _

__Howl wiped his brow dramatically. “I am completely devastated!” he announced. “Sophie, why on earth did you invite that horrible woman to stay to tea with us instead of letting her go her way? She insults my manhood, she disparages my rugby team just as if the Blues actually had a chance against them, she insults my scholarship... I am exhausted! I'm going to go upstairs and take a bath.”_ _

__“Oh, no you don't!” Sophie grabbed his arm. “You've already had one bath today. If you're not going to help me mix up this honing oil you promised, you can at least take Morgan for a bit.”_ _

__“Pah!” Morgan cried joyfully._ _

__“Very well then,” Howl said graciously, and swooped his son up into the air. “Come on, _caraid._ Let's get you into the bathtub.” _ _

__“Guh!” Sophie threw up her hands and went back to work on the next batch of honing oil._ _

**Author's Note:**

> My thanks to a misspent youth with Lawrence Welk Show reruns, for Jole's name, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03sgMOfqA8s) and to Unlisted Leaf's Youtube channel for the phrase, "Holy Mother Duck."
> 
> Anselma Powers goes on to settle in mining country up in Strangia, and write a groundbreaking work titled "Unicorns as a form of spirit possession: a case study," among other things, but she doesn't have anything much more to do with Howl and co, nor any other canon character either.


End file.
